


i wanna be held fragile like glass (cause i've never felt nothing like that)

by iliveinfantasies



Series: Avalance Tumblr Prompts [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: AvaLance, F/F, Gen, Tumblr Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 01:08:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17234561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iliveinfantasies/pseuds/iliveinfantasies
Summary: Prompts: "Things you said that made me feel like shit."





	i wanna be held fragile like glass (cause i've never felt nothing like that)

**Author's Note:**

> This series is a collection of Avalance prompts I get on Tumblr! (Thanks all, I love prompts!)
> 
> Hopefully y'all like them.

They had always been good, Ava knew, at digging at the cracks in each other’s skin; at the spaces between their ribs, the scarred surfaces of each other’s hearts.

They each knew where to grab, and then they dug, and twisted, and pinched at each other’s scars until it hurt too much to not fight back.

Until they landed here, like they always did, in the middle of a fight-to-be, weapons drawn, matching sneers on their faces.

Ava smiled, settling easily into a fighting stance. “Last chance. Come quietly and I’ll make sure you get your job back at Sink, Showers & Stuff.”

And she almost regretted it the second it slipped out of her mouth.  _ Almost b _ ecause she saw the briefest flash of hurt behind Sara’s eyes—so brief she would have missed it, had she not been looking for it.  _ Almost  _ because any response to that tiny little jab, that fighting banter, somehow didn’t feel quite right, not for the woman Ava had read about, the kind of woman who dies twice and comes back an even better assassin.  _ Almost _ —but not quite. Not yet.

Ava had always been the sort of woman who knew exactly what she wanted from her life: work hard in school, work her way up in the bureau, make her way, eventually, to second in command.

Focus, focus, focus; make her parents, the only parents of an only child, proud of her.

Make her proud of herself.

Maybe. Somehow.

So when she’d started to experience  _ feelings  _ for Sara Lance, she’d known, really, that it wasn’t something she could pursue. That it would ruin everything, all of her carefully laid plans, throw a wrench in the cogs of her well-oiled life right now and really, what business did she have falling for a rogue captain of a rogue ship who had never, ever learned the definition of rules?

Except.

Except.

Except she woke, these days, with sweat on her sheets and salt stains behind her eyes; with rough, angled pieces of herself that formed and tore and reformed and spun, endlessly into dreams of bright glittering eyes, messy and mad and full of fire and swirling, sparking smoke; of lightly chapped lips and rough scarred fingertips and the cloying, overwhelming smell of lavender pressing straight into her bones.

Of a beautiful, incredible, mess of a woman.

She shut her eyes, hard, clenching her jaw.  _ Fingers on cheeks on arms on legs on lips on skin on--- _

She let out a rough sob, and dug her fingernails deep, deep into her palms.

_ You deserve better. You deserve so much better and--and I care about you but, I. I’m not going to do this. I won’t. _

And now she’d gone and lost her, again, and she knew, god she fucking  _ knew  _ better, knew better than to let in another wild, raging girl.

But she had.

And now she was gone, again.

* * *

 

She shouldn’t be here. She knew she shouldn’t.

She didn’t even exactly know what she was doing here,  _ why  _ she was here, except that she didn’t know what she was doing, anymore, and though she hated herself for it with every fabricated fiber of her being, Sara was...she was, she was the only real, true grounding thing in her life, and these days the entire world was spinning and spiraling and everything, absolutely  _ everything  _ that she’d worked for was--

Except, no.

She hadn’t, exactly, had she?

Had it been her? Or had it been Ava 1, Ava 2, Ava 4?

Certainly not Ava  _ fucking  _ 12\. 

She pressed her fingertips into her temples, her chest constricting, tugging, pulling pieces of her heart tightly across her ribs until they tore.

Her heels clacked lightly on the metal, the pounding of her step matching the pounding in her head, in her fabricated heart, in the fake, full breaths into her synthetic lungs--

“You know,” came a voice, and Ava’s chest went cold. That voice.  _ His  _ voice. She stopped, stock still, directly around the corner from the library, and waited. “The Ava clones, they weren’t designed to  _ feel.  _ Not doubt, not excitement-- _ definitely  _ not love. That was all her.”

Ava’s stomach roiled, and she let out a rough, dry heave. She clamped a sweaty, shaking palm over her lips. Her mind swirled circles, her breath sharp, and fleeting, fast bursts of air catching tangled knots on her ribs.

Not just a clone, then—a  _ defective  _ clone.

Ava didn’t know whether to scream or cry. So she did neither.

Instead, and without waiting to hear more, she quietly turned away, tucked her mind back into itself, and opened a portal back to the Time Bureau.

* * *

 

She knew, honestly, that she wasn’t meant for this.

But Sara had been  _ excited,  _ so, so excited, and her eyes had crinkled around the edges and glittered like stars and Ava, well.

She didn’t ever want that to  _ stop. _

So she’d agreed, and jumped into a mission that was way, way out of her element, and chosen to play nice with John- _ fucking- _ Constantine, of all people.

But this was...

This. Was something entirely beside and in between; a territory she didn’t know.

Had never known, she’d realized with a sharp jolt down her spine, the second she’d stepped onto the hard dirt of the wooded path outside the log cabins.

The second she’d seen that spark reignite in Sara’s eyes, as she watched Sara take in the sights and smells and clear, vivid memories of her own time at camp.

The second she’d been dumped into the river by a bunch of twelve-year-old girls. 

“How are we supposed to do that?” she asked, now, frowning slightly. “We’re not kids.”

Sara bit her lip, lightly, before clearing her throat. “Funny you should say that,” she said, her voice too light, too-innocent, in a tone that had Ava’s skin prickling with anxiety. Sara shot Ava that sideways  _ look _ that meant something incredibly reckless and altogether unpleasant was about to happen.

“Constantine gave me a potion that would turn us into kids,” she continued, fiddling with the hem of her camp t-shirt. “Only temporarily.”

_ Oh. _

A wild, harsh beating began in Ava’s chest, all of the air pressing roughly out of her lungs.

“You’re kidding, right?” Ava said, and it came out harsher, breathier than she anticipated.

Sara raised her eyebrows, cocking her head just slightly.

She didn’t get it. Of course she didn’t get it.

Because they hadn’t talked about this, not really.

Because Sara had actually been a child, once. The sort of child who went to  _ summer camp  _ and roasted marshmallows and sang crackling, off-key camp songs in awkward half-circles.

That bit of her, that tiny, tremulous piece of herself that was holding her fragile grasp on reality broke off, and floated to the surface. A vague roaring began in her ears, and Sara was staring at her, confusion and concern painting her expression, and Ava willed the words out of her throat.

“Wha…” Ava trailed off, blowing out, pressing the words out between her teeth. “Even if it works, Sara, I wouldn’t have any idea how to act like a kid. Because I’ve never been one.”  She let out a harsh little laugh, a sharp, sputtering thing that caught in her throat and dragged rough, raw lines up the surface of her skin. “All my childhood memories are fake, remember?”

Ava saw the moment the words hit, the very second the full meaning of what Ava was saying took hold. Sara’s eyes widened, her mouth parting, just slightly, and it was too much for Ava, now, too much sympathy, too much  _ everything.  _ She spun on her heel and took off, dirt blowing drifts behind her, as she headed toward the woods.

And it was this, she realized, that separated them the most.

Sara, here, in a place of fun and wonderment and genuine laughter, doing kid things, knowing exactly what kids so, relaying the stories of her time as a camper with her friends and her first kisses and her absurd games of capture the flag.

And Ava, the defective clone,

There had, Ava was fairly certain, never been more space between them than there was right now.

And she wasn’t entirely sure, at times like these, how to fill that gap.

* * *

 

It had been an offhand comment, sort of--the kind of thing spoken in quiet moments, the ones too heavy and thick and hovering in the air, full of words that stuck like burrs beneath the skin.

A comment spoken by someone in pain, someone who didn’t quite realize the weight of her own words when she said them.

_ Because my family is gone, Ava, and what the fuck is the point of celebrating when there’s no family to celebrate with? _

A sharp burst of something cold, a too-familiar numbing sense of hollowness overtook her chest. Her eyes hardened, flinty and sparking.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, her voice flat and low, ice forming crystals on the air with her words.

“I…” Sara looked away, swallowing. “I’m sorry, I. Wasn’t.”

“Thinking?” hissed Ava, the cold climbing slowly up her skin.

It wasn’t Sara’s fault, not really; it wasn’t something Sara meant the way it came out, but Ava couldn’t quite seem to  _ stop, _ couldn’t press down the frost spinning circles in her veins.

Sara shook her head, very slightly, taking a small step back. “I…” she began, stopped, voice choked and aching. She wrapped her arms around her chest and stood there, stuck in the middle of Ava’s living room, hair falling down over her face. She glanced up at Ava, eyes red-rimmed and wild, and the emptiness there, the pure, undiluted fear, caused something to crack  in Ava’s chest, the ice falling in sheets down her spine.

Sara looked so small, so worn and lost; so completely and utterly alone with herself, and staring at Ava as though she’d finally lost everything.

A hot swell of shame flooded Ava’s chest, regret painting her lungs, until she, too, had to step back. 

Because here, standing in the middle of Ava’s living room floor, arms tucked into Ava’s oversized sweater, was Sara Lance: fierce warrior, lethal assassin, strong, determined captain of the best ship of strange rogues Ava had ever had the pleasure of meeting.

The absolute best person she’d even known.

The woman she was in love with, desperately, frighteningly, with a fierceness so strong that sometimes she couldn’t breathe.

And the woman she was shattering into pieces at her feet.

Ava blew out a long breath, taking a step forward.

“ _ Fuck,” _ she muttered, and Sara’s eyes widened a bit more, her form trembling, just slightly.

Ava reached out, carefully, slowly, and rested a hand on Sara’s arm.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, and opened her arms, gently.

Sara lurched forward, burying herself into Ava’s chest, face tucked into Ava’s neck, and Ava wrapped her arms around Sara’s back.

“God, I’m so, so sorry, Sara, I.” Ava stopped, sucking in air through her teeth.

Sara shook her head into Ava’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” Sara murmured, and Ava pulled back just enough to look into Sara’s face. Her eyes were stormy, her freckles dark against the pale, damp skin of her cheeks, and Ava reached up a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind Sara’s ear.

“It’s not okay,” she said, words too quiet and too low and too breathy. “But I promise it will be.” 

She closed her eyes, pressing her forehead to Sara’s, and Sara let out a long breath.

“I guess we’re each other’s family now,” she whispered, voice barely above a breath, and Ava smiled fully, an odd jolt shuddering in her chest.

“I guess we are,” she murmured, softly, before pressing her lips gently to Sara’s own.


End file.
